In Illinois, Loose Lips Can Sink Your Gun Rights

With the passage of the new Firearm Concealed Carry Act, Illinois “qualified examiners” — physicians, clinical psychologists, school administrators, law enforcement official and others — are now required to report individuals who they believe pose a “clear and present danger” to themselves or others. And reportable behavior does not have to involve firearms. Under the FCCA, these “mandated reporters” are to notify the state within 24 hours of anyone who communicates a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim. Or anyone who poses a clear and imminent risk . . .

of serious physical injury to himself, herself or another person. For more on this, click here to access the Department of Human Services’ Mental Health Reporting System website. This includes threatening behaviors – either physical or verbal. This includes violent, suicidal or assaultive threats, actions or other behavior, as determined solely by a mandated reporter.

Reported individuals can include an individual who comes into an emergency room, and after being observed for a time, leaves against medical advice without being admitted. In other words, if you check into a hospital E.R., sit in the waiting room for a while and feel better, then decide that you don’t want to pay for E.R. charges and leave, you may have problems. An over-eager “qualified reporter” could possibly have you called into the Department of Human Services as a “danger to yourself.” And in a short period of time, your firearm ownership rights could be revoked.

An individual after being observed for a time leaves against medical advice without being admitted. Since the individual was not admitted there is nothing for the facility to report. However the licensed professional MAY NEED TO report if the patient presented as a “clear and present” danger.

We at Guns Save Life are very concerned with the potential for abuse in this system. As it stands right now, once reported, an individual would be “guilty until proven innocent” and lose his or her civil rights without a court hearing or due process. A wrongfully accused individual would only be able to restore their civil rights after great expense and difficulty, if at all.

Gun owners should be very circumspect about any comments made to any of these mandated reporters. The doctor-patient privilege is a thing of the past in Illinois under this new law. Don’t think for a minute that you can speak in confidence with medical or mental health professionals. They are now mandated to report a wide range of topics to the Department of Human Services within 24 hours, any one of which could leave you stripped of your gun rights.

I go to the ER. Wait an hour, finally see the triage nurse. Wait two more hours. Decide, the hell with this, (try to) leave for an ER at a less busy hospital. They already have all my info and report me as a danger to myself.

Take in to consideration parents who end up in the ER with their child. I ended up taking my daughter at one year of age due to a fever and some other underlying issues. After 8 hours of being ignored by the staff and losing several “samples” because a nurse couldn’t be bothered to arrive in a timely fashion I took her home, against medical advice. Under this law am I now going to be reported as a danger to my child and not only have my ability to own firearms under threat but also have CPS at my front door trying to take her because I deemed it better to take her home and be untreated than stay in the ER and be left untreated?

Bad gas could cause acute abdominal pain, which would be alleviated by flatulence. After the pain stops, one may decide there is no emergency after all and leave. Plus some people have a tendency to over blow any signs of ailment, compounded by a liability adverse medical staff wanting to run tests just to be sure.

Wear a Browning hat during your visit and an activist nurse may use that sign of gun ownership to justify such a report that would have been passed over for a “normal” patient.

It’s not necessarily about “feeling better”. One of my local hospitals has a notorious reputation for long, long ER waits. (6-8 HOURS) It has been so bad that there have been 2 deaths in as many years in the ER waiting room where the hospital had to pay out to families because the death was ruled preventable if treatment was rendered in time. I personally spent 6+ hours in this particular hospitals ER waiting room before my, then fiancée, now wife, got sick of arguing with the staff and called an ambulance to take me to the next nearest hospital. Once finally diagnosed with a severe lymph infection, the ER doctor told me I was alive because I left that hospital instead of waiting.

Under these rules, I could have lost my ability to own firearms for trying to save my life…

It can be a bit more complicated than just that. “Suddenly feel” better may mean “I’ve sat in the ER this long toughing it out, maybe I can suffer through the whole thing, after all, save some money and not have to miss work.”

Also, sometimes they give you medicine just to ease the immediate symptoms, while awaiting test results to discover what’s really wrong and what it’ll really take to treat you. That medicine makes you feel better, for the moment, so you leave.

Or, while you’re waiting and suffering, you imagine what might be wrong with you and chicken out before hearing the diagnosis and receiving treatment. You “suddenly feel better” and walk out, with a possibly serious condition.

I am an ER doctor in a large urban ER (not in Illinois). I carry concealed where legal and own multiple guns.

From reading both links, it seems clear to me that simply leaving the ER because you are tired of waiting or your toothache feels better would obviously not be reported. They define “clear and present danger” as..

“anyone who communicates a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or poses a clear and imminent risk of serious physical injury to himself, herself or another person; or who demonstrates threatening physical or verbal behavior, such as violent, suicidal, or assaultive threats, actions, or other behavior as determined by a physician, clinical psychologist or qualified examiner”

and the simple act of leaving without receiving treatment doesn’t come close to satisfying this requirement.

What I can say from many years of dealing with this problem is that if you present as a “clear and present danger” – to yourself and/or others, you will not be leaving, so the inclusion of that clause is somewhat puzzling.

What people tend to underestimate who are not seeing this stuff on a daily basis is the severity of the mental illness that is out there. I have been spit on, bitten, threatened to be “hunted down and killed”. We have what is called a “code violet” which is broadcast overhead and means that the staff is in danger and alerts security to come to wherever the problem is. Many of these people (unfortunately) need to be physically restrained (tied down) and ultimately chemically restrained (given antipsychotics and sedatives to sedate them). They are violent, delusional, and truly a “clear and present danger” to themselves and those around them.

It is complicated, and it seems to me that as gun owners we often want it both ways. When someone who is mentally ill (pick your latest recent spree killer) does something bad with a firearm we say “it’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental heath issue”. I believe that and say it all the time to my liberal anti-gun friends. The flip side to that however is that we need to be willing to find some way to identify these people and make it more difficult for them to obtain a weapon. I understand that if not done carefully it can be used “against us” as gun owners to further an agenda of confiscation and that is why we need to be fully involved in the debate, and also need to concede that there are people in this world who should not have access to a firearm.

Your medical analysis is concurrent with a legal analysis of the actual language of the code. California has had a similar provision for many years that started off as a wrongful death lawsuit where a psychiatrist, relying on the “absolute” patient-physician privilege, failed to report to appropriate authorities that his patient was making very specific death threats against an identified target. when the patient acted on those threats, the victim’s parents sued. The case made it all the way to the California Supreme Court, which concluded that the psychiatrist had a duty to warn in this circumstance. The Illinois statute is no different. And by the way, it takes much less for a physician, an EMT or a police officer to subject a person to an involuntary psychiatric hold for evaluation of mental health– all that is required is that the mandated reporter have reasonable cause to believe that a person is a serious threat to himself or others. In California, a “5150” now earns you an automatic 10 years weapons ban. (Used to be five, but when crazies attack, the Legislature gets nervous and does stupid things.)

As mp correctly concludes, there must be a mechanism for removing access to firearms for those who are severely mentally ill, unless you want to argue that persons with a severe mental illness that are an immediate threat of harm to others should not be deprived of their rights, even temporarily, until the State can offer them due process. On the other hand, there must be a mechanism for judicial review of any such decision, as well as a mechanism for reacquisition of rights in appropriate circumstances. [As a side note, I do not believe that the State should relieve suicidal persons of their arms–if they want to go, that should be their right. but I’m special that way.]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you’ve never been to an ER in say East LA. Its chaos. The guy who dropped a chainsaw on his leg is in the same waiting area as the Asian female who has “neck pain” because of a ridiculously minor fender – bender. Most will wait hours after their $1200-$1500 ambulance ride. Many ERs in major metropolitan areas are a reflection of the abject morons who live there.

After some overpriced ER “service,” I won’t go again unless I’m about to die or I’m on government time. Many have not learned this lesson.

People take “against medical advice” as if it actually means something. If a slew of medical professionals don’t give a sh!t to see someone in a timely manner, they suddenly get excited when that person gets fed up and decides to leave. Not only can that mess up billing, but it hurts the fragile self esteemes of doctors and with years of education who have learned enough to make them gods in their own minds.

Yeah, you are correct about the predatory ambulance rides. Been there myself. @$500 for a ride where they gave no assistance. If there had been a cab company in Taos, $10. I brought my own towel to soak up the blood. And left it with them. Three staples to the back of my skull, removing them. Another $1000. The insured and uninsured alike are preyed upon by doctors who feel it their “right” to own a 5-bedroom home, 3 cars, and a 3-bedroom vacation home. And ski vacations in Aspen and Switzerland.

“If a slew of medical professionals don’t give a sh!t to see someone in a timely manner, they suddenly get excited when that person gets fed up and decides to leave”

trust me…. no one is upset or excited when you leave…

People with real problems (i.e. imminent death or a condition that could result in permanent disability) are “seen in a timely manner”- immediately. That is why people who don’t have either are waiting, and frankly most of those who are waiting shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Oh my God Craig. We take people to the hospital all the time who leave AMA. Many times they just want a ride to town so they fabricate some symptoms, get put in triage because the symptoms are not that bad and the ER is busy, then they leave. We have prosecuted some of them for abuse of the EMS system.
Many times the ER is full with a lot waiting for 1-3 hours for non emergent issues. Lots of people leave because they are tired of waiting and elect to return, possibly, when the ER is not so busy. The fact that this could escalate to the point the article suggests is disturbing. I guess with Obamacare, the realization that the person with the gold makes the rules is rearing its ugly head.
I NEVER tell any doctor if I have a rubber band gun in the closet. It is not germane to the issue. I also am never unhappy, depressed or anything other than a happy, nice guy in these situations. As with law enforcement, the less said the better.

First off my sincere apology to William Blake, my intention was not to make it personal (and I did).

It seems to me this post has generated much negativity towards those who work in the health care profession, particularly first responders and those who work in an ER.

……”After some overpriced ER “service,” I won’t go again unless I’m about to die or I’m on government time. Many have not learned this lesson.”

Agreed.

1) You SHOULDN’T go, “unless you are about to die” ……..or THINK you are- an important point to be addressed later….
2) please don’t come “because you are on government time” – many do……
3) I agree that many have not learned this lesson…..

Another quote:

” If a slew of medical professionals don’t give a sh!t to see someone in a timely manner, they suddenly get excited when that person gets fed up and decides to leave. Not only can that mess up billing, but it hurts the fragile self esteemes of doctors and with years of education who have learned enough to make them gods in their own minds.”

Trust me, we don’t get excited or upset when you leave……It doesn’t “mess up billing” and it certainly doesn’t “hurt anyone’s self esteem”…..Frankly, it gives us the time to care for those truly in need.

Can you imagine if you called an ambulance for your 4 year old daughter who was turning blue and DYING because she had a piece of hot dog lodged in her airway? , or for your Mother who was dying of a massive stroke?, Your Father/Brother/Uncle dying of a massive heart attack?, or for YOU (any of us) who had been shot in the chest or abdomen during a legitimate DGU?

IF..

Someone dear to you died (as in DEAD) because the only ambulance in the area came to someone else’s house because “I didn’t have gas money for the car, I had a flat tire, All of my money is for my methadone, my cigarettes, my beer—(not kidding) — so I called an ambulance -but the BITCHES HAD THE NERVE to charge me 500 bucks for the ride and they didn’t give even me narcotics ..” On and on it goes…

..and THEN (even better) the doctor who had the “fragile self esteemes of doctors and with years of education who have learned enough to make them gods in their own minds”..

SAID…

“I’m sorry but I’ve had years of education, I have a fragile self esteem and I AM A GOD….but….
Your family member died because I was taking care of someone ELSE who got here before you and they were really pissed they had to wait, called an ambulance and had….

– a toothache, a ‘boo boo’, abdominal pain for 15 years, ‘my vagina is itchy’, ‘I rolled my ankle 7 days ago’, ‘I have a sore throat’,’ ‘I am 20 years old and have diarrhea for 2 hours-can you give me a note for work and some narcotics?’ .. ..

Name your non- emergent complaint. They are there every day, all the time….incessantly…. They all call 911 and they all bitch about their care..

And to WB’s point, no I wouldn’t call that “critical bleeding”… think GSW to the head, chest, abdomen, or amputation of a limb proximal to the elbows or knees…. I have put over TWO HUNDRED staples into someone’s head who DID have “critical bleeding”…. because they flew off their motorcycle without a helmet going 90 MPH on the freeway or were working on a 3rd story roof and fell off….

I GET that most everyone without medical training doesn’t know the difference between “critical bleeding” and not,. .but WE do.

So don’t bitch when everyone else doesn’t get excited about your problem, if you call an ambulance for something and then sit in the waiting room for four hours, trust me, it’s not because we have a really hot poker game going or BF4 has “extra XP X 200! FOR THIS WEEKEND ONLY”……

It’s because you need to wait for those much much much sicker than you.

I am HAPPY to help you and tell you that you are JUST FINE, pat you on the head and send you home (without narcotic pain medication or a work note)

Last,

… “The insured and uninsured alike are preyed upon by doctors who feel it their “right” to own a 5-bedroom home, 3 cars, and a 3-bedroom vacation home. And ski vacations in Aspen and Switzerland”..

Trust me dude, business is booming, there are plenty of people who really need, and receive, good, emergent care by physicians, nurses, EMT’s etc… and who’s lives are prolonged for their, and their families sake…. by our care…

“The doctor-patient privilege is a thing of the past in Illinois under this new law. Don’t think for a minute that you can speak in confidence with medical or mental health professionals. They are now mandated to report a wide range of topics to the Department of Human Services within 24 hours, any one of which could leave you stripped of your gun rights.”

Then I think there should be a publicly accessible registry of doctors who snitch on their patients, so that you know who to not go see. Doesn’t mean that the ones not on the list won’t talk, it just means they haven’t done so yet.

Education piece. Mandated reporters do not decide who is a danger. That is usually left up to psychiatrists and stay offices of mental health (Doc suggests someone be committed, and the case for commitment is run by the offices of mental health. The committee retina the right to judicial review. Read up, people.

well, the antis are pretty much losing on all fronts right now, so why not open up a new one? “Invade the soft underbelly of Europe” so to speak. After all, who doesn’t want to take guns away from crazy people (sarcasm disclaimer here in case it wasn’t obvious). Even the Fudds might support this as, “it doesn’t apply to me”, until it does of course.

Unfortunately, this is the case no matter where a gun owner lives in America. Lautenberg may be dead, but his infernal act is alive and well. Date the wrong person, and your gun rights go up in smoke along with your personal life.

Married? Wife wants a divorce? Better transfer everything with a serial number to someone else, before she files a restraining order and the cops do it for you. For those not aware why, many people do this to gain an upper hand in custody and property hearings, as whoever has an active restraining order out starts with their credibility in the hole.

At some point before the NFA is finally struck down, we must do something about the ex post facto ordinance that is the Lautenberg Act.

It amuses me how medical professionals are viewed as the property of the government. Telling them they HAVE to report an individual that meets certain guidelines is right up there with mandating universal healthcare, you are effectively claiming that they have an obligation to provide you with their service. ‘Mericuh?

Gee whizz, doctors, nurses, EMTs, police officers, school teachers, administrators and aides are all mandated to report suspected child abuse. Is there an good reason at all that they should not be required to do so? This is NO DIFFERENT. And it DOES NOT permit a physician to report you as dangerously mentally ill if you simply happen to own or possess firearms. I think that we need to have some faith in these trained professionals. Will mistakes be made? Of course, they are after all human. But on which side of the equation should they err? never report until there is a body in the morgue?

And it DOES NOT permit a physician to report you as dangerously mentally ill if you simply happen to own or possess firearms.

I didn’t say it did. What it does do is require them to report anyone that meets some politician’s definition of “dangerous.” When the politicians decide what that definition is it is no longer a matter of trusting the professional to make the call. It’s a matter of trusting a politician to not be a politician.

And besides, the doctors that this effects will be faced with a conflict. Reporting is a breech of professional ethics, not reporting leads to forfeiture of their license and loss of their lucrative field of practice. Which one of those do you suppose a good chunk of them will choose?

I don’t believe an individual should loose their gun rights over these potential behaviors, but as a health care professional there are times when confidentiality must be broken to protect the welfare of the patient and the public.

I have had a couple of patients over the years appear in my office reporting strong suicidal ideations. Believe me when I tell you that it is a very stressful situation to encounter.

One of them presented unannounced in the middle of a very busy day with a loaded handgun which he showed and assured me he was going to use to take his life with because his headaches were so severe.

Another one walked in with out a scheduled appointment and promptly told me that he needed to be referred to pain management immediately, or he was going to leave and go kill himself with his gun. Before I could even respond he fled the office leaving me speechless and almost panicked.

In the first case, I personally made sure the patient got admitted to the ER immediately. The other one left me no choice but to call LE to try and locate him before he presumably carried out the act.

The point is health care practitioners can find themselves placed in very precarious situations that warrant breaking confidentiality. No doctor or nurse wants to be the reason why someone dies when if could have been prevented. Not to mention a malpractice suit which will almost certainly be brought against you.

Again, I’m not saying their gun rights should then be forfeited, but understand sometimes your privacy rights have some limitations.

Another example is mandatory reporting for signs of possible child abuse and/or neglect in health care.

In both cases you did what you felt was necessary. It wasn’t mandated by the state, or at least not in the way that this is. As in most things, the state getting involved and saying “you must” or “you must not” is where everything goes to hell.

I work in the mental health field and this is nothing new. If someone comes in and states that they’re going to kill themselves when they leave, or kill other people, you have to report that. That sort of mandated reporting is on the books practically everywhere.

Look up “Tarasoff_v._Regents_of_the_University_of_California” or “Duty to war” on wikipedia.

(1) Broadening of scope of what triggers mandatory reporting and who is required to do the reporting, and

(2) That ANY such reporting is / can lead to PERMANENT revocation of the RIGHT to bear arms.

Most of the mandatory reporting requirements exist to protect in situations of possible exigency. These new trends open up a whole new world of “what if” that is nothing short of grabber paranoia (in a lot of cases) and leads down a very slippery slope.

On the one hand, you have the Rahm/Quinn/Madigan loyals absolutely freaking out about the new conceal carry and wanting to add more restrictions where people can carry before licenses even get issued. The law passed 7 months ago and there is another 1-2 months before citizens will start seeing CCW licenses mailed to them.

“Only problem is … super-majorities in both legislative houses, the Governor’s Mansion …. Don’t expect the law to be improved anytime soon.”

I am not so sure. I thought the Illinois legislature had actually passed or was only a couple votes away from passing a concealed carry law before the 7th Circuit decision and there were plenty of Dems who supported a decent concealed carry law. The real problem is the governor. I can picture the legislature passing improvements and the governor vetoing them. I think the challenge is passing something with a veto proof majority.

I can only partially agree with that. They may own Chicago and perhaps by extension Sangamon County but at least on this issue they are fighting to minimize ground being lost more than anything. Remember the CCW was driven by Phelps who is a Democrat. Cook County would make be making a big mistake to forget just how conservative are many of these downstate Democrats. That’s especially true after the last 5 years.

Madigan signed on more for political expediency than anything — to be on the “right” side of the issue for both his face and his daughter’s aspirations. After being the biggest hurdle. While I think Phelps might have taken a harder approach, he still pulled out a resounding defeat for Chicago. The junk coming into Springfield to tighten the law is pretty much DOA, while you know the Chicago crowd has varying between an even chance to an uphill battle where the bills to loosen the law are concerned.

I watched the entire proceedings on livestream last summer. I have to give props to our downstate Democrats and our NRA lobbyist, Todd Vandermyde for pushing through the insanity in the IL legislator to get what we do have passed.

They were amazing.

Meanwhile it was disgusting and made my lunch come up listening to the south/west side Chicago representatives when it was their turn to talk. Wow talk about your classic lying, deceitful, obfuscating-of-facts Liberals – they are the WORST!!

They certainly don’t give a d@mn that their constituents desperately need to be able to protect themselves … they seem quite happy to let them all go to the slaughter in the name of the almighty gun control. Disgusting doesn’t even cover it.

Handy Tips for Avoiding Losing Your Gun Rights during a trip to the ER:
1. Leave your tinfoil hat at home.
2. Wear bright clothing – avoid army fatigues & camo.
3. Make sure your AR15 & any handguns you may have are unloaded.
4. Keep to yourself the conversations you have with the voices you hear.
5. Don’t ask if that TV screen is sending signals from space – bring your signal detector so you can check it yourself.
6. When filling out their paperwork, write something other than ‘CIA’ under ‘Employer’.

I live in PA, am a licensed counselor in two states, and have been a ‘mandated reporter’ for many years.
This is nothing new. Yes, we are required to report instances of imminent harm (client planning to harm self or other) to appropriate authorities and potential victims.
Even if someone has conflict with another and states, in a confidential session, that they want to kill said person, it does automatically raise a red flag. A COMPETENT, ethical clinician knows that people are allowed to get angry. All you have to do is ask the person if they just ‘feel’ like hurting said person…and then process the interpersonal conflict….or if they actually ‘have’ plans and intent on causing harm. If they actually have plans, then remind the client that you are a mandated reporter and have ethical duty to warn. Again, a competent individual will know the difference.
All these kinds of interactions would be documented, not detailed, in treatment notes. Any abuse of this reporting will come down to an individual clinician and not necessarily the laws themselves.

My concerns regarding this are:
confidentially is not necessarily discussed/guaranteed in emergency situations
any new changes to the ‘health care law’ that will REQUIRE professionals to discuss gun ownership (which I’m guessing many of us will follow just as the CT “assault” owners are doing)
and the fact that many professors in the medical/health care studies are progressively oriented.

If we sincerely believe that felons and the mentally ill should not have legal access to guns, then we need to do more than complain about the law. We need to present practical alternatives. Whining doesn’t solve problems. Same goes for universal background checks. If we don’t like the idea (at least the way it’s proposed), then we need to come up with a better way to keep felons from buying guns.

We have constitutionally protected rights, but we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people. We will always have imperfect laws to ensure that the exercise of one right doesn’t infringe on another.

“… then we need to come up with a better way to keep felons from buying guns.”

I have an excellent solution: keep them in prison!!!!!

If they are so dangerous that we don’t want them purchasing firearms, then they should still be in prison. Otherwise, they can purchase whatever they want from whomever they want. Remember: our government, via legislative fiat, can declare anyone and everyone to be a felon for any and every reason. That means you.

I had a little procedure done in a Peoria hospital a couple weeks ago. One of the questions I was asked pre-op “Do you feel like hurting yourself, or others? Are you depressed?” (guess that was 2 questions actually). Found that interesting, as I had not been asked that, at the same facility, last year before a hip replacement. Now it makes sense, sort of. Good thing I was in a happy place when asked that.

I think some folks are missing the point here. The ‘danger to yourself and others’ qualifier is as a result of suicidal or violent threats, not your personal preference in where you receive care.

For example, a person who leaves the ER AMA while the ER is getting the paperwork ready for an involuntary committal. The mandatory reporter that talked to this person and found them to qualify as a danger would have to report. However, leaving AMA because you are sick or in pain and decided that their needs would be better met at a doc in the box doesn’t qualify as a danger.

The problem is that once your FOID is revoked, the objection process is onerous at best as well as costing the objector tens of thousands of dollars and months of time. I can’t find any process in place to identify or review mandatory reporters that abuse the system or any repercussions for making inappropriate reports.

To make matters worse the HHS FOID department sent the notification to all RN’s in the state regarding mandatory reporting but if you dig deep enough you’ll find that the law only lists RN’s with a Masters degree in psych nursing and 3 years of post degree experience in the field as mandatory reporters. Its been a week now and I’m still waiting on an answer as to whether or not RN’s who are not ‘mandatory’ reporters are prohibited from reporting.

I’ve been working in mental health for 25 years, including in admissions units of psychiatric hospitals. Folks, the other mental health practitioners are correct, it has been like this for decades. I have no problem with it if it saves a life. However, if what is reported is accurate and you can indeed have your weapon confiscated without an involuntary inpatient or outpatient commitment being part of the process, I have a real problem with that because people who are suicidal or homicidal get better.

I think that there needs to be an appeals process, and a regular review process so that people can get access to their weapons in the future. Otherwise, it kind of smacks against the 4th Amendment. Frankly, in these situations, I used to just ask if there was a family member who was willing to hold on to the weapon in question for a while. That usually was sufficient for someone who was suicidal or homicidal who wanted help.

In PA we don’t have this law. You pretty much have to have had an involuntary commitment, be an alcoholic or addict who has brought attention to themselves with the law, or a domestic abuser to lose the right to register a gun or have a LTCF, if I understand it correctly.

I will not make any statement about you, because I don’t know you. But every SW I have had contact with was scum, except one, and I met her at a retreat, not professionally. She was appalled by all the stories I told her about my experiences with LSWs.

They were all control freaks; once they get their power talons into someone, they do not like to ever let go.

Sorry you had a bad experience, and also that you had the occasion to be involved with many social workers for some reason. Social Workers are like everybody else. Good and bad. I like to think I’m one of the good ones.

It would be interesting to see how many of these “social workers” actually have a social work degree. I could tell you horror stories from being in jobs where people with a BA in English were passed on as social workers. Sort of like people with a degree in economics being allowed to practice as doctors. You often see these fakes in child welfare because you can’t hire trained social workers to work in that field due to money and overwork.

In any case, the gun community (read NRA) would be better served educating the mandated reporter community on the gun culture instead of alienating it.

Wait, does this means that we can now label all the
gang-bangers and hoods as unstable and being an
imminent threat? If so, would this ruling actually force
fruity DAs and shyster judges to prosecute real
criminals? Could we completely overwhelm the system
by reporting scumbags as legitimate threats to them-
selves and society? I’m not agreeing with the ruling by
any means; but this could be a silver lining.

There are a few areas to consider in regard to the Illinois law. First of all, when you look at the actual law and the IDHS and ISP guidance, the reality is that it is a clear attempt to tightly define the scope of who can report and what they can report. It’s not any healthcare provider, the scope is fairly strict even though it increases the number reporting to over 250,000. On the surface, it is not necessarily bad from a FOID issuance perspective.

However.

There’s nothing about when/how your name comes off that database if it’s added inappropriately or in error. How do you get your rights back in this case — or in the case of a very short term disability? What about reports into this database that don’t flag a revocation of your FOID card? How do you even know an entry exists? How do you appeal that entry? You don’t and you can’t.

More important, there are implications in this that go far beyond the FOID card and are downright chilling. The reporting has nothing to do with whether or not you have a FOID or a gun. It doesn’t matter about your age. Even minors are subject to reporting. Here is one example from the IDHS faq:

My question regards the reporting of pediatric patients. Are we expected to report each and every pediatric patient in our very large practice who has developmental disabilities? My reason for asking is that approximately 10% of the pediatric population has a developmental disability of some sort varying from mild speech delay to severe autism. We have approximately 70,000 patients. As a best guess estimate, we probably have 7,000 patients in our practice with some sort of developmental disability as defined by your notice. How exactly are we to go about this process? We don’t have a way of searching for these patients – are we supposed to go through our charts one by one?Answer 23: Upon determining a patient to be a clear and present danger, developmentally disabled or intellectually disabled, any healthcare provider specifically identified in the statute will need to register then report. A records review back to January, 17, 2014, is required.

In short, the State is building a psych profile database on everysingleperson that sees a health care provider qualified to assess someone’s mental state. Including all licensed physicians regardless of practice. Remember that not being on this list also provides the state with (implied) information about you. That is potentially very, very dangerous. What kind of oversight is there to ensure this kind of information is not used beyond its narrow scope? What are the repercussions for abuse? We’ve already seen recent cases reported where police have harassed people simply because they show up on license plate cameras as gun owners. What reason do we have to trust the state of Illinois? Who else gets this information and even if Illinois is responsible, what checks are on these other organizations? Experience, empirically at least, would indicate that this data will be abused. And here’s the dirty secret. This is not new. It’s been around since 2008. The part that is new is the expansion of who has to report and some restrictions narrowing the scope of what is reported. If here is anything that needs “fixed” in IL conceal carry law, this should certainly near the top of the list. No wonder the recent report from the IL auditors have noted low compliance with the reporting laws.

I see something like this and I can’t help but wonder what certain early 20th century European superpowers could have done if they had this kind of information? Gun owners and defectives — all in one fell swoop.

“There’s nothing about when/how your name comes off that database if it’s added inappropriately or in error. How do you get your rights back in this case — or in the case of a very short term disability? What about reports into this database that don’t flag a revocation of your FOID card? How do you even know an entry exists? How do you appeal that entry? You don’t and you can’t.”

You keep out of the system by not living there, by living where there are no FOID.

Are you basing this on your knowledge of proposed legislation, or is this simply your fear speaking? There is enough paranoia in the gun community based on what is evident to add on things that don’t exist or that are hearsay. This is part of what gives the gun community a bad name.

Well, Nate Prentice with a lot of letters behind your name, medical doctors are already asking patients about whether they have guns at home. So there’s that, and maybe it doesn’t seem quite so fanciful or “paranoid” to you now….